Life

The past 24 hours was a whirlwind. I flew into Sacramento last night and flew back to Orange County this evening. I learned that sometimes you have to choose things. I had to choose to go home for Cindy's memorial rather than being at work on Thursday. Even when I knew my absence would inconvenience people since a sub. was never found for me, but my presence was necessary somewhere else.

It was so good to be home. To be surrounded and surround others with love. Finally I got to be with Sarah and my family. The memorial was beautiful and perfect beyond what I hazard to describe.

I left feeling so filled up with the desire to live a life of great love and genuine friendship as Cindy had. I will miss her presence in my life and in the lives of her family and my mom. You know someone has lived a pretty incredible life when you leave their memorial feeling more filled up than when you came in.

Relationships are important. Life is important. I get so caught up in routine duties like school and work that I sometimes forget life is not about those things. Success in school or in work does not equate to a successful life. Life measures itself by other standards. It is messy and inconvenient sometimes, but there are times that life just has to break in and mess up our perfect orderly routines to remind us that the point is to live. I need to make more time for life, more time for relationships especially.

My two great desires for my life are this: to love God and love others.

If I can do those two things well then I will have lived a fulfilled life beyond whatever career path or honors I may receive. Life is about relationships and community.

trying to catch my breath

I am overwhelmed.

There's no simple way to explain everything that is going on so I'll leave it at that. But in particular I am stressed because I thought I had a substitute for myself during the days I plan to be back home for the memorial, but apparently they couldn't find a sub. who was willing to do diaper changes. Sooo I'm planning on leaving Wed. night and coming back Thurs. night. I feel like just crying, but I know that won't solve anything. That isn't enough time, but I can't bring myself to leave Emma to fend for herself for 2 days especially since she is unable to transport herself, change herself, or manage her eating and drinking alone.

Lord, please bring a solution. Give us all mercy.

heartache

I wish I could be self-sufficient. To do what I need to do and be content and satisfied without any need for others. However that is ridiculous and not how God intends any of us to live. But that would resolve this deep pain in my heart and stomach. I can't believe I've written about this twice already on this blog. I need a place where it's safe to be weak and needy. I hate feeling that vulnerable, but that is what's real and the sterile anonymity of a blog feels safe.

The truth is I feel so alone. This is not just lonely, but a deep soul aching alone. I wish I was exaggerating, but unfortunately I'm not. It makes my whole body hurt. How many other people feel this way? I'm sure there are a lot. I pray mercy over the lonely.

I want to be around people, to have friends to just sit with me in this, but that's not an option right now. Ideally I want to be alone with someone. Does that make any sense? I want to be with a friend and not pretend but to just sit with them without talking and to just be.

God has purpose in this. In all this stuff that he's working out in my heart, but for the moment I feel like he's tearing me apart.


"Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds." (Hosea 6:1)

Free love

I was talking to this guy the other night and realized that he is not looking for a girlfriend. He just got out of a bad relationship and has a lot to sort through and told me he doesn't want to date for a long time among other things. (Don't worry it wasn't in a DTR context, we were just discussing dating as a concept) Anyway I felt so rejected and hurt and sad on Sat. night. And when I was driving to church on Sunday morning I stopped my thinking and took out my logic and questioned my feelings. Because as Dogterom says your feelings cannot be helpful guides if they have not been retrained.

I stopped and thought, whoa what's going on? Why am I so upset about this? I barely know this guy. Why do I do this so often? Why do I always want to date guys I draw close to?

Then the Holy Spirit seemed to say look deeper, those are symptoms. And I saw that I want to possess love. I'm so afraid of losing love that I want to capture it. Not only do I want to possess the person's love I want to possess them or at least a part of them. I am not satisfied, I always want more. So if it's a girl I want to be one of her closest friends and if it's a guy I want to be his girlfriend or at least his number one girl that's a friend. I realized this is way messed up and that love cannot be possessed, or it will get sick. Love is meant to be received with hands open because it can come and go but it must have freedom or else it can't be love. It's also not fair to withhold from my friends the freedom that I enjoy, the freedom to love how much or how little they want or be as open or hidden as they want.

So that guy is great and he is offering me a valuable friendship. I need to take what he is offering me and be grateful and not expect more.

It's like love is a bird you watch outside. It will come and share its beauty and energy with you, but it is most beautiful and alive when it is free to fly where it wants. If you try to capture the bird for yourself it will grow sick and despondent and no longer bring you pleasure at all.

The root of this all as pointed out by my mom is my fear of rejection and need for acceptance. I need to allow others, including God, to love me.

Try not to try

I met with Prof. Bill Dogterom today for my first time. It was really good. How does he know to ask the questions he does? I felt like I was about to cry about 5 times. Basically he said I need to learn stillness and stop being so anxious...

This is much easier prescribed than carried out. He said I need to trust God with my spiritual life. This will be hard.

He described this analogy of stillness in the spiritual life:

In the quiet time we spend with God it's like being in a clearing with a deer or a squirrel and we're offering out our hand with an offering, but we have to stay still and keep our hand open if we want our offering to be received. It can't be taken if we show anxiety or close our fist.

Alone

Sometimes I feel so alone. I realize I'm writing to myself and I have no audience, which makes me feel more alone. This hurts. What happened? I'm low on the priority list...

Time to just smile and go to class. The key to survival: don't let anyone know when you hurt.

hello

I have been seduced by this whole blogging thing. Alas....

I suppose I enjoy talking and voicing my opinions and this gives me an outlet even if no one reads it. hehe I also enjoy procrastination, which this will certainly enable.

What have I done?